Everything starts small, people say.. but certain things end smaller! One such thing is an Ant.

Today, when leaving from a close friend’s house, i saw some ants inside my shoe. For those animal entusiasts out there, they were red ants. Others, read on.

Well, I’m sure they weren’t yearning for attention, just that i had enough time to muse. Ants are pretty small, but carry things several times their size. They are almost weightless, but carry several times their weight. They are fragile and don’t have winter clothing, so they save enough to last a long winter. Their legs are microscopic, yet they walk a great deal. I’m not even sure if they have a nose, but they sense even if a few crystals of sugar lay on the floor. Their teeth is thinner than our finger tips, but its sting can hurt and leave a little cherry on your skin for over a day. No notion of time they may know, yet they can delay us by quite a while, just as they did to me today. Not because they are red in color, but they can actually get you angry or irritated or make you complain!

The point is that they aren’t as powerless as they seem. These little guys today, reminded me of several management fundas (aka jargon!), and some timeless principles of great value. They keep reminding that size does not matter – what matters is what you do with what you have. They work hard, save prudently, are very agile, make merry, take rest, are alert and if you get in their way, they know how to fight back. They do things that most of us can’t even imagine doing – can you carry something 3 times your weight and walk around? Most importantly, they are experts at planning, executing and looking forward to life. They know their limitations – they can’t come out during winter. So, they plan for their food and shelter. They don’t crib that they can’t find food for 6 months. They don’t worry about the tough times. Most of us do. They plan and prepare. We worry.

We, as elite creatures on earth, are used to having things our way. Even trivial things like crowed buses, credit card dues, bad roads, cell phone network coverage, traffic jams, shopping for a friend’s wedding, salary hikes, promotions, rising petrol costs, rise and fall of stock markets, etc etc affect us a lot. By making an issue out of all these perfectly manageable stuff, little do we realize that we are losing our resilience every day. Like Mr. Subroto Bagchi pointed out in his article ‘The Fallen Tomato Cart’, an average man, with a much tougher life than ours, does a better job of living it than most of us, the well to do, do. Most of us don’t even do as good as the little ant.

Isn’t it time we stop worrying about insignificant things around us, and start being more positive – rather sensible.?

Everything starts small, people say.. but certain things end smaller! One such thing is an Ant.

Today, when leaving from a close friend’s house, i saw some ants inside my shoe. For those animal entusiasts out there, they were red ants. Others, read on.

Well, I’m sure they weren’t yearning for attention, just that i had enough time to muse. Ants are pretty small, but carry things several times their size. They are almost weightless, but carry several times their weight. They are fragile and don’t have winter clothing, so they save enough to last a long winter. Their legs are microscopic, yet they walk a great deal. I’m not even sure if they have a nose, but they sense even if a few crystals of sugar lay on the floor. Their teeth is thinner than our finger tips, but its sting can hurt and leave a little cherry on your skin for over a day. No notion of time they may know, yet they can delay us by quite a while, just as they did to me today. Not because they are red in color, but they can actually get you angry or irritated or make you complain!

The point is that they aren’t as powerless as they seem. These little guys today, reminded me of several management fundas (aka jargon!), and some timeless principles of great value. They keep reminding that size does not matter – what matters is what you do with what you have. They work hard, save prudently, are very agile, make merry, take rest, are alert and if you get in their way, they know how to fight back. They do things that most of us can’t even imagine doing – can you carry something 3 times your weight and walk around? Most importantly, they are experts at planning, executing and looking forward to life. They know their limitations – they can’t come out during winter. So, they plan for their food and shelter. They don’t crib that they can’t find food for 6 months. They don’t worry about the tough times. Most of us do. They plan and prepare. We worry.

We, as elite creatures on earth, are used to having things our way. Even trivial things like crowed buses, credit card dues, bad roads, cell phone network coverage, traffic jams, shopping for a friend’s wedding, salary hikes, promotions, workplace politics, rising petrol costs, rise and fall of stock markets, etc etc affect us a lot. By making an issue out of all these perfectly manageable stuff, little do we realize that we are losing our resilience every day. Like Mr. Subroto Bagchi observes in his article ‘The Fallen Tomato Cart‘, an average man, with a much tougher life than ours, does a better job of living it than most of us, the well to do, do. Most of us don’t even do as good as the little ant.

Isn’t it time we stop worrying about insignificant things around us, and start being more positive – rather sensible.? [tweetmeme source=”FlaringSparks” only_single=false]